JuNE 1, 1899] 
NATURE 
117 
INIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
OxrForpD.—The 202nd meeting of the Junior Scientific Club 
was held on May 26. After private business, Mr. J. M. 
Wadmore (Trinity) read a paper on caoutchouc; Mr. M. 
Burr (New College) exhibited some live walking-stick insects ; 
and Mr. H. E. Stapleton (St. John’s) read a paper on Dulong 
and Petit’s law. 
AN exhibition of practical work executed by candidates at the 
recent technological and manual training examinations of the 
City and Guilds of London Institute will be opened by the 
Duke of Devonshire, at the Imperial Institute, on Friday, 
June 9. 
Tue Edinburgh correspondent of the Zazce¢ states that the 
court of the University of Edinburgh had recently before them 
a report from the committee appointed to draw up a statement 
and appeal for funds for University purposes, in which it was 
stated that the funds required for the equipment of the Public 
Health Laboratory and for the preparation of a library catalogue 
had been provided, the former by the generosity of Mr. John 
Usher of Norton, and the latter from the munificent bequests of 
the late Sir William Fraser. For the library, however, funds 
are still urgently required. The most pressing wants are: (1) 
a fire-proof room for the storage of rare books of the fifteenth 
and early sixteenth centuries and the MSS., which number 
about 7000; (2) a fund, amounting at the lowest figure to 
25,000/., for the purchase of scientific and literary journals and of 
larger works of reference ; and (3) extensive structural changes 
and new book-cases, costing at least 5000/., or a new and suit- 
able building for the library. Another direction in which it 
will soon be necessary to spend money is the establishment of the 
Physical Laboratory. The construction and equipment of this 
laboratory will be a large undertaking, but it is one which will 
have soon to be faced if the scientific reputation of the University 
is to be maintained. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
American Journal of Science, May.—Some experiments with 
endothermic gases, by W. G. Mixter. The endothermic gases 
operated upon were acetylene, cyanogen, and nitrous and nitric 
oxides. A beautiful experiment described is one in which 
acetylene is decomposed at a dull red heat. The gas issues 
from a narrow tube into a wider tube, heated by a Bunsen 
burner. When the glass begins to glow there is a slight puff, 
and the stream of gas issuing from the narrow tube .glows, or 
rather the carbon particles glow in it with the heat of dissocia- 
tion of the acetylene.—A hypothesis to explain the partial non- 
explosive combination of explosive gases and gaseous mixtures, 
by W. G. Mixter. Detonating gas, a mixture of carbonic oxide 
and oxygen, one of cyanogen and oxygen, and other explosive 
mixtures of gases, do not explode below certain pressures when 
sparked. Explosions do not occur because of the infrequency 
of impacts of molecules having a velocity or internal energy 
adequate for chemical union. Some of the molecules combine, 
but the heat of their union is not sufficient to restore the energy 
lost by radiation, and the change is therefore not self-propagat- 
ing.—Occurrence of palzotrochis in volcanic rocks in Mexico, 
by H. S. Williams. Origin of palzotrochis, by J. S. Diller. 
These two papers effectually dispose of the hypothesis of 
the organic origin of the siliceous formations described 
by Emmons as due to some primordial coral. Prof. 
Williams describes some specimens coming from an old 
eroded volcanic cone made up of altered porphyry and volcanic 
tuffs, situated north-east of Guanajuato in the Santa Rosa 
mountains. A microscopical study of thin sections reveals the 
fact that the nodules are spherulites, acommon feature of acid 
igneous rocks. —Association of argillaceous rocks with quartz 
veins in the region of Diamantina, Brazil, by O. A. Derby. 
Red clay is always associated with the quartz veins of the 
diamond region of Minas Geraes, Brazil. The author describes 
a remarkable layer of that kind, one to two metres thick, 
which has received from the miners the name of Guza (Guide), 
because, as they state, diamonds were to be looked for below 
the outcrop of this layer, and not above it.—Volatilisation of 
the iron chlorides in analysis, and the separation of the oxides 
of iron and aluminium, by F. A. Gooch and F. S. Havens. 
NO. 1544, VOL. 60] 
The fact that ferric oxide is completely volatile in HCl gas 
applied at once at a temperature of 500°, and at 200° if the acid 
carries a little chlorine, opens the way to many analytical 
separations of iron, notably to the separation of intermixed iron 
and aluminium oxides.—Preliminary note as to the cause of 
root pressure, by R. G. Leavitt. The author applies the latest 
researches on osmotic pressure to the known facts of plant 
physiology. 
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, May.—Prof. 
Holgate gives an account of the April meeting, of the Chicago 
Section, at Evanston, April 1. There were two sessions in 
the day, and twelve papers were communicated.—Prof. Bécher 
gives an elementary proof that Bessel’s functions of the Zeroth 
order have an infinite number of real roots. This was read at the 
Society’s February meeting (cf Gray and Mathews’ “ Treatise 
on Bessel Functions,” p. 44.) A generalisation of Appell’s 
factorial functions (read at the December 1898 meeting), by Dr. 
Wilczynski, is a slight modification of Appell’s proof. The 
writer proposes to discuss these functions more fully later on. 
A paper, read at the February meeting, by Prof. J. Pierpont, 
entitled “‘ On the Arithmetization of Mathematics,” is an attempt 
to show why arithmetical methods form the only sure founda- 
tion in analysis at present known. General reasons are indicated 
in a paper by Klein (‘‘ iiber Arithmetisirung der Mathematik,” 
Gottinger Nachrichten, 1895). The paper enters into consider- 
able detail. There is much metaphysics as well as mathematics. 
—Prof. E.W. Brown contributes an appreciatory review of Prof. 
Darwin’s work onthe tidesard kindred phenomena of the solar 
system, and also notices ‘* Lecons sur la théorie des Marées,” 
by Maurice Lévy.—The Notes give an account of a projected 
change in the ‘‘ Annals of Mathematics,” which is to be in- 
augurated in vol. xiii., and a full list of the subjects of lectures 
at a dozen German universities, besides some notes of personal 
matters. 
Wiedemann’s Annalen der Physik und Chemie, No. 4.— 
Pitches of very high notes, by F. Melde. The author reviews 
the various methods by which very high pitches have been 
determined. These include subjective methods like those by 
direct hearing and by difference tones, and objective ones like 
the various vibrographs and the author’s own method of reson- 
ance. The author admits that the method of difference tones is 
untrustworthy, and points out certain advantages of the sensitive 
flame which might be utilised.—Viscosity of gases, by P. 
Breitenbach. Of the two methods for determining the viscosity 
of gases, that of transpiration through a capillary tube, and that 
of the oscillation of a solid, the latter indicates a greater increase ° 
of viscosity in the temperature. But in any case the increase is 
not quite proportional to the temperature.—Effect of electric 
oscillations upon moist contacts, by E. Aschkinass. Two 
pointed copper wires which just touch each other act as an 
ordinary coherer in air or alcohol, but when immersed in water, 
or when the points are only connected by a drop of water, the 
action is reversed, since electric waves have the effect of tem- 
porarily increasing instead of reducing the resistance. In 
another form of the experiment, a few drops of water are added 
to the copper filings of an ordinary coherer. This reversed 
action is as yet entirely unexplained.—Emission and absorption 
of platinum black and lamp black with increasing thickness, by 
F. Kurlbaum. The emission of blackened surfaces is compared 
with that of an ‘‘absolutely black body” in the shape of an 
orifice of a brass vessel blackened inside and kept at a constant 
temperature by circulating steam. A bolometer is exposed to 
radiation from this orifice and to films of black substances kept 
at the same temperature. It appears that platinum black has a 
higher absorptivity and emissity at greater thicknesses, whereas 
that of lamp black is greater in very thin layers. Neither of 
these substances absorbs heat rays of great wave-lengths. For 
most purposes, platinum black is to be preferred, if only on 
account of the facility in controlling its electrolytic deposition. 
—Radius of molecular action, by W. Mueller-Erzbach. Films 
of bees-wax or sealing-wax were protected by thin layers of gum 
against the dissolving action of carbon bisulphide vapour. The 
thickness of the layer of gum required for effectively protecting 
sealing-wax was 0°35 mm., whereas bees-wax was sufficiently 
protected by a layer only 0°14 mm. thick. 
THE April issue (vol. Ixv. part 4) of the Zeztschreft fiir 
Wissenschaftliche Zoologie contains five articles, of which, per- 
haps, the one by Messrs. Eimer and Fickert, on the evolutionary 
history of the Foraminifera, is the most generally interesting, 
